


For Lack of Better Words

by orphan_account



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Much more family feels than anything else at the beginning, Not beta'd we die like men, Slow Burn, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, no seriously this is slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:47:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26485147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Robby is twelve, and his dad didn't invite him to his new karate place. He's thirteen and his dad didn't tell him he got married, and has a whole new son. For lack of better words? It's all down hill from there.Robby didn't think it was too much to ask of his dad to call. He didn't expect to find out after all these years, his dad hasn't told his new family about his old. Robby is sixteen, and his dad still hasn't told his new, perfect family about the one he left behind. He hasn't told his old family about his need for a liver transplant, either.Robby is sixteen, and he has exactly one card to play.
Relationships: Miguel Diaz/Robby Keene
Comments: 18
Kudos: 83





	1. ... you have to pay to play.

Robby was not pouting. He wasn't. He was _twelve_ now, and that was much too old to be pouting, and everyone knew that. This didn't mean he wasn't upset. His arms were crossed, and brow furrowed because he didn't like what he was seeing.

He thought the flyer would be _fake_ – mom said it would be. Dad was a 'big' karate guy, someone probably just used his face to make a flyer because flyers were stupid, and dad was still paying the same lousy amount of child support. Nothing had changed. But there he was! His dad, in a black karate gi with his hands up while a kid in Robby's grade tried to punch him. Robby knew him… sort of. Miguel What's His Face? They had a few classes together, and Miguel was friendly enough, but a bit dorky. He'd been picked on before, and things had taken a turn for the worst, so Robby got why he'd want to toughen up.

But why with _Robby's_ dad? Why not his own? Or his mom could teach him to throw a punch too, why not? Why Robby's Dad?

Why hadn't dad told him he was opening a dojo? When Robby was little, dad said when he was big enough, he'd teach him karate. Why was _Miguel_ big enough, but not Robby?

Johnny Lawrence finally looked up, noticing how Robby hung in the strip mall window, and Miguel What's His Face did, too. His dad sighed, but that was it. Robby dropped his skateboard down and pushed off, starting his way towards the parking lot's end. Maybe dad would come after him. Maybe he'd invite Robby to train, and maybe Robby would consider it. Maybe dad would invite him to train one on one like he was doing with Miguel.

None of those things happened, though. It was just the start.

"Do you have a pencil sharpener?"

Robby looked over his shoulder. It was Miguel – Miguel What's His Face? Usually, Robby would have shrugged and nodded, cause he _did_ have one. So did the teacher, every room had one mounted on the walls, but those were, like, fifty years old and as dull as that sounded. No one used those if they could help it. He'd let Miguel use it before, too, because Robby sat in front of him, and it was easy. What else was he going to do, say no for no reason?

"Get your own," He said. _Get your own dad, while you're at it_.

"What's up your butt?" Eli said.

"Are you boys working?" The teacher asked.

"Yes, ma'am," the boys chorused. Robby tried to return to his math sheet, even though he hated it.

"You know, I saw you," Miguel said. Robby looked over his shoulder again. For some reason, Miguel was smiling. Not _smirking_ , not mean, just like something mildly cool had happened and wanted to share it. Robby couldn't think of a reason why. "At the dojo? That was a dojo, by the way. That's where I do karate. He was teaching me to be badass – and then I'll be able to kick people in the face."

"I know it was a dojo. I saw the flyers." Robby explained. He didn't just stumble his way into a strip mall. It wasn't even a good strip mall, the parking lot was all cracked, and it was harder to skateboard there. Not to mention there was nothing cool there, the ramps were lame, and there were no handrails to practice jumping on. It was a lousy strip mall, and there was no reason for Robby to go there. There wasn't even an ice cream place he could get free samples from.

"You could come in, you know," Miguel said. Robby stared for a moment, quirking his eyebrows up a bit at the suggestion. "I mean, karate is awesome. Eli's thinking of signing up too, and I bet Sensei would love another student. It's not a lot of money, either."

"He'd charge me?" Robby's eyes widened. Why did that hurt so much? Dad wouldn't charge him, would he? He could just… take it out of the child support or something. He didn't have to charge. And he always said, when he was big enough, Dad would teach him, so why … that didn't mean paying.

"I mean, yeah, that's how lessons work," Miguel laughed at him. He really laughed at him, like Robby had said something funny. Even Eli was snickering, and Eli _never_ did anything that might make people look at him.

"Whatever," Robby muttered and turned back around. He closed his workbook, crossing his arms over it and resting his chin down. Robby didn't like being laughed at normally, he wasn't sure anyone did. The whole thing still stung a whole lot more when the guy who was laughing at him happened to spend alone time with his dad. Robby was twelve years old, he wasn't going to pout about it. He wasn't going to cry, either. He was twelve, he hadn't cried in _years_. He wasn't going to start crying now because Miguel What's His Face paid money to spend time with his dad and told Robby he'd have to do the same. And that's the thing, wasn't it? It's not like his dad really liked Miguel, he was being paid to spend time with Miguel What's His Face. It made Robby feel a little bit better. He grumbled his way through the rest of the school day, mind occupied by much more important things. Like, if his dad really would have had him pay for classes. 

If that's how it was going to be, then no way was Robby doing it.

"He probably didn't know," Mom said. "I know your father, he wouldn't have said who you were. Too _embarrassing."_

"I'm embarrassing?" Robby asked.

"Oh," Mom cooed and turned around to face him, putting her hand on her chin. She smiled sadly at him, and Robby tried to turn the corners of his lips up, too. Mom wasn't trying to be mean, she was just trying to explain, and that was more than Dad ever did. "I didn't mean it like that, sweetie. I just mean he didn't want to admit he's a dead beat loser in front of a kid he's trying to swindle for money. That's all."

"Oh." Robby said, and that was that.

If Johnny Lawrence wasn’t going to fess up to having a kid, well, Robby wasn’t going to do it for him. Mom always said secrets were important, and if this was one Johnny wanted, Robby wasn’t going to break it.

_“See this?” Shannon held out a little glass cup, something Grandma had given her a while ago. Her stance was wobbly, and her make-up was smudged. She smelled like she always did after a very long night out. “This is a secret. Once you break it, there’s no going back, and I won’t like that you’ve broken it. See? When mommy goes out at night, that’s a secret. What happens if you tell people our secret?”_

_“Then it’s broken,” Robby was four, and learning new things every day. “Mommy won’t be happy and I can’t fix it.”_

_“Exactly.”_

So that would be it. Robby wasn’t going to rat Dad out. That didn’t mean he’d have to make it easy on the old man.

If Johnny Lawrence wasn’t going to fess up to having a kid, Robby wasn’t going to do it for him. But one thing was for sure, Robby still had a bit of his father in him.

He wasn’t going to take it lying down.

So that would be it. Robby wasn’t going to rat Dad out. He didn’t want to make things even worse than they already were. The whole thing was like playing keep away: the bigger kids had stolen something from him and refused to give it back. But now, Robby was twelve, and the bigger kids weren’t bigger at all, they were just a whole lot colder, and it hurt a whole lot more.

Miguel What’s His Face was winning a game he didn’t know he was playing, and all Robby could do was play along. Otherwise, everything would just be worse. How could he compete with someone like that?

And how could he get his dad back when every day felt more and more like he never had him in the first place?


	2. ... it's kind of funny.

Rent was paid, and that was all that was supposed to matter. At least, that was what mom said. She was grabbing some things, tossing a few pairs of underwear – the nice ones that had to be put on _delicate_ , she said, when Robby was doing laundry – into her purse. She was also taking all of her orange bottles with her. He knew what those were. Some were for sleeping, some got her high.

See, Robby was thirteen, and he knew what that meant. She felt _‘good’_ like that, and Robby understood she wanted to feel good. He wanted her to be okay, and sometimes she wasn’t. She was too stressed, overworked, underpaid, jobless sometimes and that didn’t stop the rent.

Or the power. Or the groceries.

The time that mom spent not looking for a job, she spent looking for a good man. One who could pay the bills, like this guy. His name was Steve and the first time he saw Robby, he tried to ruffle Robby’s hair. This was the second time they met, and he was taking mom on vacation, someplace in Aspen where he could ‘teach her to ski or go in the hot tub.’

That was a good man, who could pay the rent and take his mother out. She kissed the top of Robby’s head and promised rent was paid by this _Steve_ guy.

Robby wondered if his dad was paying Miguel’s mother’s rent.

He was thirteen, and it didn’t matter if mom was going away if she was doing so with a purpose. He could cook at least five meals by himself (eggs, in two different ways, pasta, meatballs, sandwiches, toast, and hot dogs). He could make both hard-boiled and sunny side up eggs. He could _sometimes_ make scrambled, but often when he tried, it messed up the bottom of the pan and he wasn’t sure where he went wrong. It usually took a lot of scrubbing to try and fix what he had done, and by the end of it, he would swear off making scrambled eggs.

At least until he got bored of hard-boiled, which were so, so easy to make.

While mom was away, Robby didn’t exactly _play._ His friends at the skate park thought it was so cool. He could do anything that he wanted. He could throw a party. He could stay up late. He could _drink_ , if he could get his hands on the stuff. And sure, sometimes he did. He invited Reggie over and they’d stay up late playing his dusty old Mario Kart and the PlayStation that was old for even eBay. They tried alcohol, but the stuff burned hard. Maybe it would have been more fun if the Keene home was bigger if they had the space to really throw a party. With one couch to sleep on and not much else, being alone all the time got boring pretty quick. Reggie couldn’t be there too often, because Robby didn’t want him to think he was a coward like he couldn’t be alone. He had everything a thirteen-year-old boy wanted. Endless privacy, no rules… it was just Robby and four walls all to himself.

Because he was an early riser, Robby was one of the very first at the skate park. He was there by 7:30, warmed up from the travel itself, and going rampant on the curves. By eight, the light had improved. By ten, the others began trickling in.

“Catch any worms?” Reggie said, an old joke that had become a habit as he kept calling Robby an early bird.

“You know it,” Robby waved him off. They kicked off, not talking much as they passed each other over again, sharing the pit and mocking each other when they fell, competing to see who could go higher off the wall or pretending they managed an ‘Air Walk’ move like from the Tony Hawk games when neither dared try.

Finally came lunchtime or at least a break from the eternal pull of gravity asking to break their noses. Wordlessly, the two dropped their boards onto the flat ground and began pushing their way to the main road.

“Man, I swear, she does it on purpose,” Reggie said.

“Who?” Robby asked.

“Ms. Grabber,” the other complained. Robby nodded. Real name Ms. Grover was the Language Arts teacher and had a habit of taking everyone’s phones at the slightest provocation. Reggie had his taken, _again_ , on Friday, this time for… what was it? Oh, right. Getting through the door while the bell was ringing. In Robby’s opinion, and most of the students from what he could tell, that didn’t count as late. That counted as right on the dime on time. Reggie’s mom had to come in and get the phone back.

Robby had been on his best behavior trying to make sure that didn’t happen to him while mom was away, cause then who knew when he’d see it again? Then again, as long as Ms. Grabber was on the warpath, it was starting to look like it would be better all-around if he just skipped. Who cared about _language arts_ classes? They were in eighth grade, they could talk just fine, and it wasn’t like they were reading some highfalutin classic stuff like… Moby Dick, or that one where the dude got walled up in a cave over some wine. What was that? Some Edgar Allen Poe nonsense.

Robby could have sworn Edgar Allen Poe was English. Finding out he counted as Southern Writing was a bit of a mindfuck.

“At least you got the phone back,” Robby weaved around a street sign.

“Yeah, but took my allowance cause of it,” Reggie grumbled. “She had to leave work early cause I was “late.” It’s such bull!”

“It is bull,” Robby nodded. “I mean, it’s not like your allowance is even gonna cover what she missed. And you weren’t late.”

“And I wasn’t late!” Reggie agreed. They slowed, the greener side of the park coming up to the right of them. There was a rope jungle gym and a few kids playing, but that wasn’t all. Robby quickly noticed a short blond kid, someone in sixth grade if he remembered right, but then some others, too. Aisha. Eli. Miguel.

Miguel Diaz, he had learned, and all of them went to his dad’s dojo.

“Assholes,” Reggie said. That was a two-dollar bad word if Robby remembered Reggie’s mom correctly, but it was an accurate one. Miguel Diaz won some regional karate tournament and beat up some of the bullies in school last year. After that, some of his friends had stuck to karate and their attitudes took a nosedive. Eli demanded everyone call him Hawk, even the teachers. Robby heard rumors that Miguel hit a _girl_ and she fell and hit her shoulder bad. Aisha had given someone a wedgie like they were in some bad eighty’s movie.

“Dude, I have gym with Eli,” Reggie lightly smacked Robby’s shoulder with his knuckles, pointing out the guy trying hard to grow out a mohawk. “When we were changing, he was showing off this drawing on his shoulders, it was of a bird.”

“Let me guess, a hawk?” Robby snorted.

“Yeah,” Reggie nodded. “I told him it was a sharpie, and he threw this huge fit saying it was a tattoo.”

“Who’d give a kid a tattoo?”

Reggie shrugged. It _had_ to be drawn on and had to be sharpie. Supposedly sharpie could get you high, and with the way the Cobra Kai kids behaved, Robby would totally believe it. Eli used to be so quiet, like a demure little puppy after someone stepped on its paw. Now he was definitely erratic enough that Robby would like to believe substances were involved.

“Hey, Try Hards!”

Reggie and Robby looked up, one hand holding their skateboards up to rest against their legs. The Cobra Kai kids had definitely noticed their gossiping and were smirking towards their general way.

“Try Hards?” Reggie asked. “What exactly are we trying?”

“I have no clue,” Robby said.

“Trying hard to look badass,” Eli said, pointing to their clothes. Okay… yeah, they were wearing darker clothes. Their jeans were a little worn around their knees, and in one spot on Robby’s had worn completely through, but that was to be expected with skateboarding. Maybe it was Reggie’s red flannel strapped to his waist, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t how flannel worked. He was also pretty sure that wasn’t how thirteen worked. “Maybe if you joined Cobra Kai, you’d actually learn a thing or two.”

“Why would I join your dumb fight club?” Robbie rolled his eyes.

“It’s not dumb, you dick!” Eli stepped forward, glaring and pulsing a violent warning. Robby raised his eyebrows, chuckling a bit as Eli puffed his chest out.

“Sensei said you’d be good if you gave it a shot,” Miguel explained. “You keep hovering at the window, you think he’s not gonna notice?”

“I don’t _keep hovering,”_ Robby defended. He went around maybe once a month, _twice_ maybe if shit happened at school. Finding out Miguel’s mother was dating his dad through a dumb karate rumor had sucked. He just thought if he showed up, maybe dad would step out, tell him. Talk about what was going on. Ask him to meet his girlfriend? _Anything_. Anything at all.

It never happened.

Reggie snickered, putting the back of his hand to his mouth to try and contain it. Robby rolled his eyes, giving Reggie a look. “Dude. It’s not funny.”

“It is, kinda,” Reggie said. “I mean, he’s trying to _rumor_ you into joining his kicking cult. It’s the lamest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Hey!” It happened fast. Now that he had been taking lessons for so long, Eli’s temper had mutated into nonexistent. He punched at Reggie, and Robby had to step in, shoving his arm aside so it wouldn’t hit. Miguel stepped up, shoving Reggie in the shoulders and he shoved _hard_. Reggie stumbled back, catching his balance on the last step in surprise. “Don’t talk shit about Sensei!”

“Oh, but there’s so much shit to say!” Reggie retorted. “Haven’t even touched on the whole _washed up loser_ bit –“

“Calm down, man!” Robby said. It was all very dumb. Miguel shoved him then and sent Robby tumbling to the sidewalk. He kicked up, getting a solid hit to Miguel’s stomach, but that didn’t stop a fist from flying to his face. He felt his lip split as stars hit the back of his eyelids. When he could see again, Miguel was over him. How had this happened so quickly? Robby spat, blood and saliva smacking Miguel in the cheek. The fist twisting his shirt tightened and Miguel pulled his fist back to hit again. _Strike first_ , Robby remembered seeing that on the walls of his dad’s dojo. Clearly, he was a good teacher.

“Do me a favor, man,” Robby smirked. “Tell him you hit me when I was down.”

Miguel’s face twisted, the confusion Robby caused twisted still to anger. He pulled back and got ready to punch, “Gladly.”

Robby put a napkin to his lip, trying to help clot the blood. Reggie had a set of frozen peas and was holding them to his shoulder. He proclaimed, “That was the dumbest thing that’s ever happened in the history of ever.”

“Is that a quote?” Robby asked.

“Eh, maybe,” Reggie said. “I get the feeling I heard it from Bob’s Burgers.”

“Oh.” Robby nodded in approval.

“I just don’t get it. I mean, how do you get mad over an old dude you see like, once a week?”

“I don’t think they practice once a week,” Robby said.

“Okay, but _still,”_ Reggie said. “It’s not like you insulted – “

“No, _you_ insulted –“

Reggie put his hand up, accepting the criticism. “That’s fair. It’s not like _I_ insulted their mom, I insulted your dad. We’re friends! I’m allowed to bash your dad and call your mom hot until it makes both of us very uncomfortable.”

“She is not.”

“She is, and its my job to tell you that.”

“Yeah, well,” Robbie spit out a bit of napkin that had gotten stuck to his lip. “You’re fired.”

“No, I’m not. I’m your only friend, dumbass.”

“Whatever,” Robby sighed. “I don’t think they know that he’s my dad.”

“That’s not possible. Isn’t he dating Miguel’s mom?”

Robby shrugged, looking down at his hands. Reggie huffed out in confusion, poking the air side to side like he was working an abacus to try and put two and two together. “Wait, so… he didn’t tell you he was opening a dojo, didn’t let you be his first student, and when he finally wants you to sign up, he tells Miguel to tell you while not saying you’re his kid? How’s that even work?”

“No one ever said my dad was smart,” Robby said. “Mom always said he was a giant man-baby, so I guess this shouldn’t be surprising.”

“Oh. What’s a man-baby?”

Robby shrugged.

“What are you going to do?”

Robby shrugged again. “I can be a man-baby, too. I’m gonna join another dojo to piss him off.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments make me write faster


	3. ... just because you lose, doesn't mean you've lost.

Finding a dojo turned out to be a much bigger task than it would initially seem. For kids like Miguel The Jerk, sure, _fine_ , just find a dojo, there’s a flyer right there! And a mom to sign the forms! Oh, and here, have a new dad while you’re at it. Everything is fine and dandy, and the rainbow will come out of the sky to celebrate the most perfect day ever.

Robby had a mom who could sign the paperwork, but that didn’t mean that they had the money to pay for a lesson. In fact, Robby couldn’t even bear to _ask_ such a thing from her. Sometimes her boyfriends were willing to cough up their rent, but they sure as hell weren’t going to pay for their side-chick’s kid to go to lessons, and no way would they do it with enough consistency that it would actually piss off Johnny, which meant Robby and Reggie had to find a new plan for Operation Boil Johnny’s Blood. 

The code name was Reggie’s idea. And no, Robby never said it out loud.

Robby didn’t want to think about how it had come to this. The only way to get Johnny to look up was to piss him off. Maybe Shannon was right. The dead-beat loser only noticed them when it inconvenienced him, when it made him rage. If he had any other trigger points, he would have come when Robby was being born. Robby should have learned a long time ago that the Keene family simply wasn’t worth Johnny’s time, not unless they _forced_ it.

So, Robby didn’t have any dojo – _yet._ Instead, he had a complete list of every kid that was in Cobra Kai, and the beloved little protégé, Miguel. Maybe the Diaz family had beaten the Keenes when it came to attention and… whatever else it was that kept Johnny dating Ms. Diaz over Shannon, but Robby had something else.

The Cobra Kai kids? Well, they all seemed to have one _wild_ temper.

High School was a beast that, to be honest, Robby hadn’t quite been prepared for. Shannon told him tons of stories, being belle of the ball, the parties, the flirting the dates. How dates had been so much easier in high school, and Robby would reap the benefits. She was right about some things – the other kids from the skatepark had their own little clique. It wasn’t some tight kind of relationship and Robby had no clue why they were even considered clique-ish. Was it just a high school thing, and everything needed a name? They were just kids, of different ages and backgrounds and whatnot, and they enjoyed skating. It was easier to sit together at lunch than nowhere at all, or alone.

Robby tried eating lunch in the library the first few weeks, but that was tough, because food wasn’t actually allowed in the library and he had to sneak it. Then Reggie switched math classes and they had the same lunch together from then on, so they joined the others at the table. It was a good thing, too, because some of them were _wild_ when it came to planning.

It pissed Robby off to no end that as time went on, the Cobra Kai kids gained so much. The reputation – the kids everyone thought to be losers that ended up being so damn tough. That dumbass Eli refused to answer to anything other than ‘Hawk.’ Aisha, who’d been teased for her weight for so long, managed to pull a fast one on the last girl to make fun of her and now people were scared to go near her. And Miguel, the _teacher’s pet_ when it came to karate.

Robby hated him. But they all had a temper, and Robby knew how to use it.

“The hell are you smirking at?” Eli thumped up to their table, making his footfalls much heavier than they needed to be – especially with _that_ frame. Just because the guy could kick an apple off someone’s head didn’t mean he was buff in a way that let him walk like a gorilla and get away with it.

“Nothing at all,” Robby put his water bottle down, keeping the expression still on his face. “I was just trying to figure out where that smell was coming from, before you came up. I would’a thought your sensei would have taught you about showers.”

“What the hell did you say?” Miguel played right into Robby’s hands, and Robby couldn’t help but chuckle.

Today was a condensed karate session, which Robby knew all about. He kept his tabs on his dad, who wouldn’t? There was some fancy tournament coming up, and Johnny was pinning some of his hopes on his better students and giving them the majority of his focus. Miguel was the forerunner, and even Robby could tell.

But Miguel couldn’t go if he had detention. He’d miss the training session, and maybe Johnny would see that picking fights was so much more important to the Diaz kid than the stupid karate lessons.

“I said,” Robby stepped up to him. “You should seriously consider washing. No wonder you can’t get a date when you smell like the smelly ass socks you wear in your dojo.”

It was like that one chess move, what is it called? The Dangling Pawn. No, _hanging_ pawn, where the pawn was all laid out and the other guy couldn’t resist an easy steal, and then unknowingly opens themselves up for attack. Miguel saw an easy prey, and punched Robby, knocking his head back. The hit was hard, blooming pain on his cheek bone, but he didn’t stop. Robby snaked down, rolling under Miguel’s legs until he spun around, kicking him hard in the stomach.

“ _Fight!”_ Someone screamed. Kids starting circling around like sharks, and really, Robby couldn’t blame them. Reggie and the other “skaters” backed off, mostly at Reggie’s urgings. While he didn’t know the specifics, it was likely Reggie knew that this wasn’t all up to chance. 

Robby covered his head, two forearms up in front of his face so Miguel couldn’t hit him there twice, but he sure as hell tried. _Fight! Fight! Fight!_ The other students began to clamber about in excitement. Miguel shoved hard, a solid hit to Robby’s stomach that made him stumble back. Miguel kicked, and it didn’t take much until Robby’s legs hit the bench of the closest lunch table and his back flung down.

“Hey! What’s going on in here?!”

The hitting stopped, and green eyes peaked from behind protective forearms. Miguel was pulled back, painted red nails clawing at his hoodie.

“Miguel just started whaling on him, Ms. Grimshaw!” Emme had blended herself into the crowd, away from the rest of the skater kids. “Robby didn’t do anything!”

“Yeah, it was wild!” Someone agreed.

“Keene didn’t even fight back.”

Robby pulled himself off the table, rolling his shoulder with a small pout, looking ever so innocent. Miguel started sputtering, shoving a hand out to Robby’s face. He was so rude! You didn’t see it! I had to strike first!

Robby rubbed a hand around the back of his neck, keeping his face sweet. Ms. Grimshaw had none of it.

“Detention, Mr. Diaz, if you think I won’t be calling your mother over this, you’ve got another thing coming.”

Miguel looked ready to murder him. As she led him out of the cafeteria, Robby couldn’t even help it. He raised his hand, giving Miguel a mocking little wave, trickling his fingers one by one. Miguel jerked, ready to start all over and Robby couldn’t help but laugh.

“Why do you have to pick fights with him?”

Robby had iced his cheek, so at least it wasn’t swollen up. Everything else was fine, buried under his clothes and his own zip up hoodie. He’d lost the physical fight, but if Johnny was here, he had no doubt that the rest of it had worked. He lost, but he totally won, too. Robby twirled a fork in his leftovers, the microwave meal he’d left unfinished from the night before.

“Let me guess, he told you it’s all my fault,” Robby looked up, his smirk slipping up to one side of his face. Miguel must have been _so charming_ , after all, Johnny seemed to lap up every word.

“You egged him on –“

“He egged me on!”

“How?”

“By _existing,”_ Robby said plainly, glaring at Johnny. The blond man sighed, dropping his chin down.

“He’s your stepbrother, Robby. You can’t give him a break?”

“Oh, _sure,_ he’s my stepbrother, and I didn’t get an invite to the wedding,” Robby snapped back. “You don’t get to call him that to manipulate me when he doesn’t know I exist!”

To his credit, that gave Johnny pause. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to make Robby feel any better about everything going on. His mom was right. She was right about so many things and the only thing that made it tolerable was knowing Robby had pulled one over on Miguel.

Miguel would find a way to get him back because of this, but Robby would take his turn, too. This spiral wasn’t going to end – especially because it was working. Johnny came, just as pissed as Robby thought he’d be. It was really working.

“It’s a lot harder than it seems, Robby.”

“I don’t care,” Robby said. His nose flared and the grip on his plastic plate of food tightened. Johnny backed off, for now anyway. It didn’t matter that Johnny left. What did matter was that he won – at least this round. He'd play this card until it wore out, too. 


End file.
